Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S2 smartphone was named as the best smartphone by a well-known U.S. magazine in its latest handset survey, industry sources said Monday.

Consumer Reports recommended the Galaxy sequel as the best smartphone pick for subscribers of three major mobile carriers in the United States.

The magazine gave the Galaxy S2 rolled out by AT&T Inc. a score of 80, the highest among smartphones available at the No. 2 mobile operator in the U.S.

The Galaxy S2 models released by T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel Corp. also received the highest scores among the operators' smartphones.

For subscribers of Verizon Communications Inc., the only major U.S. mobile carrier that did not release the Galaxy S2 smartphone, Consumer Reports recommended the Droid Bionic smartphone, an Android-power handset by Motorola Mobility Holdings Ltd.

The Galaxy S2 received the top scores in the categories of screen, usability, messaging and Web browsing. The magazine also praised its voice calls, camera functions and battery life.

Other Android-based smartphones by HTC Corp. and LG Electronics Inc. also ranked high on the list compiled by Consumer Reports.

On the other hand, the U.S. magazine gave lower scores for Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S was ranked fourth on the list of smartphones recommended to AT&T's service subscribers. It failed to rank in the top five of other mobile operators' smartphone lists.

I absolutely love one handed texting as I'm a texting machine. The keys are notched and have the return dots for tactile recognition. The keys on the 9000 are the largest of any BB presently so I'm not moving.

Also, I've dropped my 9000 so many times and it still works fine. My wife dropped her Sammy from her purse, and it was time for a new one.

NASA uses smartphones to serve as low-cost satellites...Rely on a Smartphone? New NASA Satellites Do April 23, 2013 - Smartphones. We carry them in our pockets, toss them in our tote bags and have them at the ready whenever we want directions to a destination or to snap a picture or to call a friend. Perhaps we're often guilty of taking the gadgets' microprocessing powers for granted. Not so with NASA, which just sent three smartphones into space as low-cost satellites.

PhoneSats

When Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on its first test flight Sunday, the privately built booster carried a payload to simulate the cargo craft that will one day dock with the International Space Station. But Antares also placed into orbit several new mini-satellites built mainly with smartphone components, which the U.S. space agency is calling their PhoneSats. The three so-called PhoneSats are named 'Alexander,' 'Graham,' and 'Bell,' after the inventor of the telephone. The PhoneSats are small cubes, each about the size of a beverage mug and weighing a little more than a kilogram. At the core of each is a Google-HTC Nexus One phone, whose zippy little microprocessor -- running the Android operating system -- serves as the onboard computer.

NASA's PhoneSat project has won Popular Science's 2012 Best of What's New Award for innovation in aerospace. PhoneSat will demonstrate the ability to launch one of the lowest-cost, easiest-to-build satellites ever flown in space

Operating in Orbit

Jim Cockrell, the PhoneSat Project Manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, described the project in a video broadcast on NASA TV ahead of the Antares launch. "Someone here asked the question, 'Can we fly a cell phone as the avionics for a satellite and have something that's very capable but really, really inexpensive?' So PhoneSat was launched to try to answer that question," he said. NASA says the three PhoneSats are operating in orbit, and transmissions from the trio have been received at various ground stations here on Earth.

Low-Cost Satellites

Engineers spent between $3,500 and $7,000 for the PhoneSat components. They did add a larger, external lithium-ion battery bank and a more powerful radio to send messages. The space agency says smartphones have more than 100 times the computing power of an average satellite. Researchers note that smartphones come equipped with fast processors, high-resolution cameras, global positioning system receivers, radios and sensors. "The smartphone vendors have put a lot of R&D [research and development] money into making very, very capable microprocessors that have a lot of processing power and speed in a package that's very rugged," said NASA's Cockrell.

Monitoring PhoneSat Transmissions

Researchers continue to monitor the satellites, which could remain in orbit for about two weeks. NASA adds that amateur radio operators can monitor the transmissions themselves. Each satellite will broadcast a signal every 30 seconds on the amateur UHF band 437.425 MHz. The PhoneSats will attempt to take pictures of our planet as well as send information via radio back to Earth. Think about that next time you pull your phone from your pocket. But don't think about texting 'Alexander' 'Graham' or 'Bell.' NASA says it has disabled their ability to send and receive calls and texts.

Be wary of smartphone games damaging eyesightSat, Apr 20, 2013 - Candy Crush Saga is the most popular game being played on smartphones as of late.

No matter whether you are riding the bus, waiting for the bus or eating, so many people have their heads down, preoccupied crushing candy as soon as they have even a moment to spare. Eye doctors have discovered that the number of young patients visiting their clinics has been increasing, with symptoms that include sore, swollen eyes and rapidly worsening nearsightedness. They surmise that this mainly is occurring because people are playing cellphone games and staring at computer screens excessively. Chen Ying-shan, head of ophthalmology at Cathay General Hospitals Hsinchu branch, says that the vast majority of his patients in the past were elderly people, and that people between the ages of 20 and 60 only accounted for around 10 percent of his patients. In recent years, however, that number has risen to 30 percent.

The symptoms among this group of people are quite similar, including sore, swollen eyes, as well as dryness and discomfort, while another group of patients consists of young people showing signs of presbyopia and nearsightedness inexplicably getting rapidly worse. For example, one 30-something woman was told by an eyeglasses retailer to see a doctor because her nearsightedness was quickly degenerating and had caused her to switch glasses twice in 6 months. After the doctor questioned her further about her daily routine, he found that her eyesight was probably getting worse due to looking at her cellphone too often, which had caused her pseudomyopia  temporary nearsightedness  to get much worse.

Chen says that looking at cellphones is worse for your eyes than looking at computer screens or watching television. The cellphone screen is typically only around 30cm from your eyes, and since the screen is so small, both eyes move inward toward each other to maintain single binocular vision  convergence  which is a huge strain on the eyes ciliary muscles, he says. Playing games on your cellphone in poorly lit areas is similar to taking a small flashlight and shining it directly in your eyes, which fatigues your eyes and can cause macular degeneration if sustained for an extended period of time. In the end, although you may not have poor eyesight, the quality of your overall eyesight can be negatively affected and may in severe cases necessitate surgery.

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